Best and Easy CMS system for AdSense sites

[rickkumar]

Hi,

We have a lot of domains parked, so just exploring the CMS systems to try some adsense sites.

I know there are some smart domainers who have posted some nice sites here.

Please help us select the Content Management System that:

- is EASY to use (we don't know any coding/programing)
- Best FUNCTIONALITY
- SIMPLE to learn
- Lets manage/edit multiple sites
- Has easy/powerful admin panel
- Has LOTS of templates and themes available
- Secure

There are so many like joomla, drupal, xoops, etc but I am having hard time deciding which one to try.

Please advise.

Thanks.

 

[Name Trader]

Those are way too powerful for a simple adsense site. Try sNews http://www.solucija.com/home/snews/. I think it also on sourceforge.

 

[CrazyTech]

Rick, I'd look into Wordpress to be honest. Sounds like you definitely don't need a full CMS and Wordpress makes it easy to add articles and doesn't provide all those extra features. Otherwise, if you must have a CMS, look at Xoops or Drupal.

 

[harkster]

I recommend Drupal at www.drupal.org. Its not overly complex, can be set so file names/paths are seo friendly and easy to get started with etc. Not a lot of templates but several are not hard to change the look (mostly edit css file(s) and set features via the control panel). A cool feature I like is that it can be set such that any registered user can run their very own blog.

Some of my sites -- www.dodgeturbo.us, www.dubaifestival.info, www.robertspokerrules.com, www.rosevillepottery.info, www.zunebuzz.com, a new development for a client www.dirksoulis.com/test (under development)

I am not involved with Drupal. Just that after spending months fighting the Joomla learning curve I stumbled on Drupal and after a couple days playing I built DodgeTurbo (my first public Drupal site) in less than a day. It doesn't have the power of a Joomla/Mambo but does have some very nice features and much easier to get started using.

 

[rickkumar]

Gentlemen, thanks for all your input. I will look in to all to gain basic familiarity about these systems.

Hark: Those are some pretty decent sites. Do you get increased search engine traffic and make more money from your content on those sites? I mean, is it worth making sites instead of parking?

Again, thanks for all the responses....please keep them coming.

 

[sdtrader]

I use Drake CMS. Not a lot of support and no templates but it is simple easy to alter your own templates. No MySQL database to fuss around and therefore easy to set up and transport between hosts. What it is really is a simplied flat file Joomla. May not be the best for complicated sites but my favorite for quick minisites. Others have suggested drupal and wordpress above. They are also good and are probably the two seasoned favorites for this purpose. I have also found etomite quite good as well.

 

[rickkumar]

I use Drake CMS. Not a lot of support and no templates but it is simple easy to alter your own templates. No MySQL database to fuss around and therefore easy to set up and transport between hosts. What it is really is a simplied flat file Joomla. May not be the best for complicated sites but my favorite for quick minisites. Others have suggested drupal and wordpress above. They are also good and are probably the two seasoned favorites for this purpose. I have also found etomite quite good as well.

Can you provide some examples please?

 

[harkster]

Hark: Those are some pretty decent sites. Do you get increased search engine traffic and make more money from your content on those sites? I mean, is it worth making sites instead of parking?

The Dubai site is new but looking positive. Nothing big but new reg and time will tell.

Dodge site was parked and earning almost nothing. Last month almost paid reg fee with minimal content.

The Zune site has served its purpose and is just sitting there cause of the PR5. A place for links to my new sites. Still produces a bit of income but I now have other more important projects. Will eventually redirect the traffic to somewhere -- probably ZuneMart-com.

The Roseville site is part of a larger network of pottery related sites and produces nice income -- typically mid $XX/month.

It isn't easy to get new reg names paying. I have some which didn't work as mini-sites and do well parked and some which are just total loosers.

BTW with mini-sites not all income is from Adsense or YPN (which I can't get accepted into ). I had the Zune site running early and got nice $$ from pre sales of 6 Zunes. I have sites which sell collectibles reference books thru Amazon and am about to do a site with the eBay rss feeds -- my gut says these might work quite well. What I am saying is be it developed or mini-sites it isn't easy and requires work and experimentation to see what does or doesn't work. Not trying to scare you but that is just the way I see it.

I make no claims to be a designer -- just do what appeals to me. I also like the challenge of building and earning a bit. My current goal is 25-50 sites generating high $XXX - low $XXXX per month.

I also like sharing the little things I learn as I go.

Yes I talk to much...

 

[rickkumar]

Hark: I find your comments very honest and helpful. I have a lot to learn. Thanks and I really appreciate the details that you provided.

Regards.

 

[sdtrader]

Can you provide some examples please?

The best thing might be look at the demonstration sites:

Drupal

WordPress

Etomite

Drake CMS
Drake:
I put up a fresh install for you as a demo to play around with for a couple of days if you desire.I will pm you the admin url and administration log in.
Don't worry about messing anything up as I will remove and reinstall later when I am ready to begin developing the site.

 

[abdussamad]

Hark: Those are some pretty decent sites. Do you get increased search engine traffic and make more money from your content on those sites? I mean, is it worth making sites instead of parking?

The Dubai site is new but looking positive. Nothing big but new reg and time will tell.

Dodge site was parked and earning almost nothing. Last month almost paid reg fee with minimal content.

The Zune site has served its purpose and is just sitting there cause of the PR5. A place for links to my new sites. Still produces a bit of income but I now have other more important projects. Will eventually redirect the traffic to somewhere -- probably ZuneMart-com.

The Roseville site is part of a larger network of pottery related sites and produces nice income -- typically mid $XX/month.

It isn't easy to get new reg names paying. I have some which didn't work as mini-sites and do well parked and some which are just total loosers.

BTW with mini-sites not all income is from Adsense or YPN (which I can't get accepted into ). I had the Zune site running early and got nice $$ from pre sales of 6 Zunes. I have sites which sell collectibles reference books thru Amazon and am about to do a site with the eBay rss feeds -- my gut says these might work quite well. What I am saying is be it developed or mini-sites it isn't easy and requires work and experimentation to see what does or doesn't work. Not trying to scare you but that is just the way I see it.

I make no claims to be a designer -- just do what appeals to me. I also like the challenge of building and earning a bit. My current goal is 25-50 sites generating high $XXX - low $XXXX per month.

I also like sharing the little things I learn as I go.

Yes I talk to much...

Yes very interesting comments. MAy I ask what sort of traffic you get for your sites? You must be getting a significant amount of traffic to be making money from adsense right?

 

[harkster]

Yes very interesting comments. MAy I ask what sort of traffic you get for your sites? You must be getting a significant amount of traffic to be making money from adsense right?

Keep in mind that these are niche sites and therefore the traffic is not huge. I have several other developed sites plus parked names. I can't say a lot about Adsense other than Google sends me a little note on a monthly basis. I get irregular payments from CJ, Amazon and a couple PPC sites. No single item prodices a lot but a bit here and a bit there will finally start adding up. I seldom can put down a sale so I am trying other things.

For the sites I mentioned here; stats are from March:
RosevillePottery-info, 3280 uniques and 7020 page views - first reg'd Jan of 2005

RobertsPokerRules-com, 258 uniques and 2556 page views - first reg'd June 2005; developed about 6 months later

DodgeTurbo-us, 306 uniques and 1180 page views - was parked a long time and developed Feb 2007

DubaiFestival-info, 360 uniques and 1835 page views - reg'd Apr. 2006 and - was parked and brought online Feb. 24, 2007

The ZuneBuzz-com is on the decline (I am not working it) from a high of 2500-3000 uniques/month to 971 uniques and 9457 page views in March. (that is a lot of page views)

On the other side I have www.whyrefinance.us which I can't seem to get going. Only 28 uniques and 95 page views. Online about a month. I have let another 8 or 10 which were not paying the rent expire in the last few months.

I don't want to give the name other than it is linked to from one of the sites described here. Came online on Oct 5, 2006 - 2624 uniques, 4442 visits and 36,799 page views in March.

I also used to have a mini-site 50cent-cc which wasn't earning reg fee so parked at ND until it expired. All I can say is Whoopee - I renewed it.

This may be overload but you asked. I know a lot of people will say peanuts which relative to many it is. From where I sit I am moving slowly forward and having a bit of fun in the process. In reality I am not ahead of the game because of a bunch of grossly stupid registrations. I have cut way back on that (learning from experience). But I have some developed names that should be worth a fair chunk of change.

NOT ALL INCOME IS FROM ADSENSE!!

 

[whitebark]

Best - PostNuke - hands down, most secure, built in template engine, best permission structure of any CMS and no other CMS can match it for page display flexibility. But, it has a sharp learning curve if you want to do more than simply post articles.

Easiest - Wordpress. Joomla Drupal, Xoops all good too. If it is ease of use and simple article posting than wordpress would suit you fine.

It all comes down to what you want to do. If you want to open up subscriptions, target ads to specific keywords/articles/topics etc, templates for different browsers, have a forum etc than I can't recommend postnuke more. The basic setup will get you everything you need to publish articles, host a forum, screen spam, comments, run ad campaigns etc.

 

[Rich_H]

Lots of good advice given so far.

If your just looking to monetize with some articles, reviews, etc. then wordpress would be my pick. Once you get the hang of it you can develop some good looking but relatively simple sites where you can integrate adsense. there are plenty of resources available too (templates, plugins, etc)

As for the long list of full-featured CMS, all I can say is try them out. Each one has it's own strengths and weaknesses. Some have more documentation and support, some have more templates and plugins, some have a steep learning curve, etc. Some good choices have already suggested. I've used (or at least tested) the following at one point or another Drake, Joomla, Drupal, Xoops, Plone, PostNuke, etc., etc. (more than I care to remember ).

Try them all, if you feel up to it, use a different CMS for several different domains. You should quickly develop a preference for one or two then go from there.

Good luck,

Rich

 

[bliss]

Grab something like the articlebeach cms script. Then you can use different types of categories on those domains or link the sql database togethier. This way you can also get others to post articles on your domains as well for links back to thier site. fresh content.

 

[redshift]

you can test drive all CMS at www.opensourcecms.com all demos are loaded and you can mess around with them then it reloads every 2 hours

I'm enjoying reading your comments hark thanks

 

[rickkumar]

Thank you all for suggestions. I am looking in to it.

Btw, I was reading Frank's blog and someone mentioned drag/drop site creater called Weebly.com, I was wondering if anyone here has tried it before? Looks too easy/simple to me........

Thanks.